109
307.
In the course of its working visit to the province of Buenos Aires in June
2010, the Rapporteurship of PDL received information according to which, on February 23,
2008, Mr. Gastón Duffau, after being arrested, was beaten in a patrol car and at Ramos
Mejía police station, and later taken dead to a hospital. The second autopsy carried out on
him determined as many as 100 lesions consistent with kicking, baton blows, punching, and
knee blows. The autopsy concluded that all of these lesions had occurred immediately
before death. In this regard, according to the Committee against Torture of the Comisión
Provincial por la Memoria [Provincial Truth Commission]:
There are no exact figures on the number of people who were victims of
torture, executions, or killings by the police. [...] [A]s the people
concerned tend to belong to the most excluded sectors, most such
incidents are not reported, nor do they come to the attention of the
media. Unless relatives, organizations, and persons close to the victims
persevere in these cases, they usually remain in impunity or are justified
as “confrontations.” There is a structural pattern, an attitude of
institutional concealment, regardless of the import of the offense
346
committed.
Forced disappearances
308.
The Commission notes that in the present times, even though less than in
the past, there are still instances of persons who have gone missing while in the custody of
the State. These incidents even happen with individuals formally deprived of liberty in a jail
or in another official detention facility.
309.
Thus, for example, the IACHR requested the Inter‐American Court to
order provisional measures to protect the lives and wellbeing of Francisco Dionel Guerrero
Larez and Eduardo José Natera Balboa, on November 13 and 28, 2009, respectively. Mr.
Guerrero Larez was serving a sentence at the Venezuela General Penitentiary (PGV) and his
family said that they had had no news of his whereabouts since November 7. Similarly, Mr.
Natera Balboa, who was imprisoned in the Eastern Region Penitentiary Center known as “El
Dorado”, was last seen on November 8, 2009, when he was allegedly violently put into a
black vehicle by members of the National Guard. In both cases, relatives of the disappeared
men made different efforts before administrative, judicial, and investigative authorities but
failed to obtain any concrete results. The Inter‐American Court continues to maintain in
effect both provisional measures, in which it orders the Venezuelan State to adopt
“immediately, the measures necessary to determine the situation and whereabouts” of the
347
beneficiaries.
346
Comité Contra la Tortura de la Comisión Provincial por la Memoria, Annual Report 2009: El Sistema
de la Crueldad IV [The System of Cruelty IV], pp. 432‐434.
347
I/A Court H.R., Provisional Measures, Matter of Guerrero‐Larez, Venezuela, Order of the Inter‐
American Court of Human Rights of November 17, 2009, Having Seen 1 and 2; Whereas 9, 11, and 12; and
Resolves 1; I/A Court H.R., Provisional Measures, Matter of Natera‐Balboa, Venezuela, Order of the President of
the Inter‐American Court of Human Rights of December 1, 2009, Having Seen 1 and 2; Whereas 9 and 11, and
Resolves 1.
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